


a love you can't design

by quietrook



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Brothers are brothers, Church scene, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 16:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17707736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietrook/pseuds/quietrook
Summary: Ronan, Adam, and Opal go to Sunday Mass.





	a love you can't design

There was a part of Ronan that Adam would never be able to reach.

He stood by the door, leaning against the frame as his boyfriend stood in front of the bathroom mirror, his fingers dexterous and impossible as they maneuvered a tie into a full Windsor knot. It reached down to his belt; the way a Windsor should, if Adam remembered correctly. Not too short. Keeping his eyes on Ronan, he fingered his own four-in-hand knot, wondered if it was too little, wondered if it was one of the things that would set him apart as a person who did not belong with the rest of them at St. Agnes.

It wasn’t that Adam didn’t believe in God. Not really. He was raised Protestant by his mother, had the fear of God put into him by his father, and attended a Baptist church more Sundays than not throughout his tumultuous childhood. After everything he had seen, everything he had been a part of since meeting Gansey, he could hardly say that there was nothing out there. But it wasn’t about believing; it was about being, and that was something Adam had always had difficulty with. As he watched Ronan’s Sunday morning ritual unfold, he had to acknowledge that there was nothing about Ronan Lynch that was not present, nothing that was not wholly him. Every part of him was connected to every other part of him. Ronan was to Adam as he was to church, to family, to Cabeswater, to Opal, to his friends, to the Barns, to his heritage, to his dreams, to his self-destructive tendencies. If anyone could teach Adam to be, to wholly exist, it was Ronan. 

And there were very few places where Ronan simply was as strongly as he was at St. Agnes.

Sharp, blue eyes met Adam’s in the mirror and he felt seen. Known, to the core. He stood up straight and cleared his throat.

“I’m going to go check on Opal and make sure she isn’t destroying the house.”

Eyes that knew he was only telling a partial truth spoke to him silently, but a full mouth accepted his excuse and said, “I gave her some vegetable scraps. She’s probably eating a shoe, instead, but can’t say I didn’t try.” 

Ronan shrugged and went back to feeling along his jaw, checking for any spots he missed while shaving earlier. With one last glance at the love of his life making a ridiculous expression at his reflection, Adam left the room to go find their goat child.

Opal was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by coloring books predominantly bought by Gansey, or Henry. There was, indeed, a paper plate lying next to her on the floor with a couple of large carrots, but they appeared untouched; judging by the state of the room and the residue left around her mouth, Opal had preferred to eat the tissues. Adam padded across the floor in his cactus socks, and took a seat next to her. She was using a green crayon to color absolutely everywhere but inside of the lines, tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. 

Adam felt overcome with love for this strange dream creature.

She set the crayon down after the entire outside of the picture was colored and turned large, unblinking eyes onto him. Her hair, for once not covered by the beanie she habitually wore, was messy and stuck up in every which way. They’d tried to fix this; it wasn’t possible. Adam preferred it that way. Opal was a wild thing, just like her father. 

Wordlessly, she pushed the coloring books away from her as she clambered forward and onto Adam’s lap. He held back a pained hiss as one of her hooves connected, hard, with his shin, but he wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest all the same.

Opal began to chew on his tie. He gently pulled it away from her and gave her his hand, whereupon she began to gently - or as gently as Opal ever could - nibble at the skin on the back of his hand. 

“Is Kerah ready yet?” she mumbled into the skin, and Adam felt the uncomfortable sensation of kid spit dripping down his hand.

“Almost,” he replied. He looked down at his watch out of habit; they had plenty of time, and Ronan would never, could never be late for Mass.

After a few minutes of letting Opal silently chew, Adam slowly and carefully separated her from him. He stood and brushed his pants off quickly. As Opal began to take a new, comfortable position on the floor pulling threads out of the carpet, Adam began to pick up all of her coloring utensils. He put them away in a kitchen drawer and sighed, leaning against the counter. 

“Nervous?” Ronan’s voice came from behind him, and a small smile graced Adam's lips. 

Strong arms slipped around Adam's waist, and he turned around within the embrace to face a fully ready, well groomed Ronan Lynch. Adam's heart jumped into his throat; here was a Ronan who he rarely saw, cleaned up and wrung out and level. Here was a Ronan that, until less than a year ago, Adam never would have believed existed if you had told him. He loved this formal, immaculate and reverent Ronan every bit as much as he loved his messy, fragmented and irreverent Ronan. No more and no less.

Adam forced his heart back into his chest cavity and adopted an unfazed expression. He knew Ronan saw through it. Ronan knew that he knew; the quirk in his smile made it apparent. He leaned forward to press his forehead to Adam’s, breath soft and warm. 

“Aren’t you the nervous one?” Adam asked quietly, and Ronan reached down to squeeze his hand.

He couldn’t hide the shakiness of his next breath, but he pulled back a few inches and smiled at Adam.

“Can’t get anything past you.”

“Never. Nice try, though.” 

Adam pressed forward to kiss Ronan very lightly, hoping his reassurance came across.

A gagging noise came from behind them.

“Ew,” Opal said. She stepped up to them, clomping in her rain boots, and forced her way under their arms to stand in the middle of the two. She looked up with a big, unblinking stare, expectant.

“Shithead,” Ronan said, and leaned down to drop kisses onto the top of her head.

She smiled, teeth peeking out from under her upper lip. Within a blink’s time, she had escaped and was tugging Ronan by the sleeve of his jacket to the door.

“Come on,” she said authoritatively. “We gotta go.”

Ronan rolled his eyes, but let himself be dragged through the door and out to the car. Adam grabbed his keys, his wallet, and slipped on his shoes before he went to follow after. He lingered in the doorway, watching the two people he loved most clamber into the BMW. Ronan caught his eye through the windshield and stuck his hand out of the window to gesture at Adam.

“Are you coming or not, Parrish?” he shouted.

Adam locked the door behind him.

-

The ride to St. Agnes was filled with constant noises: the radio, punctuated by split seconds of silence whenever it was changed by either of the three of them; Opal, chattering incessantly; Ronan, answering the endless series of questions she asked; Adam, answering after Ronan’s bullshit answers so she could actually learn how the world worked; and Adam having to intermittently tell Opal to put her seatbelt back on. This was how their car rides typically went.

Henrietta was never much for traffic, but on Sundays it was a different story. A good portion of the population were either devout Catholics or devout Protestants, and the exodus to morning service or Mass was always something. Adam found himself getting pissed off constantly at the driving behaviors his fellow Virginians were exhibiting. He would turn to say something about it to Ronan, and stop each time. 

If Ronan was in a poor mood, he didn't show it. He was tapping on the leather steering wheel to the rhythm of the music on the radio, and his eyes were bright with that Sunday Mass feeling. He had a faint smile that grew into a broad grin whenever he caught Adam staring.

Adam remembered when Ronan’s secret smiles would vanish at being discovered. He felt overcome with affection, realizing just how close they were. He let his hand rest on Ronan’s knee as they drove, and chastised Opal for swearing at the traffic in front of them.

As they pulled into the gravel parking lot of St. Agnes, Adam marveled again at the sight of the chapel. It was breathtaking, despite the innumerable trips to and from it, despite Adam's months of living above it. Despite his minimum knowledge of the stories in the Bible, Adam found his own life mirrored in the exquisite stained glass. He figured that's what parabolic meant.

Though they weren't late by any means, Adam did not miss the sight of a silver Audi parked closer to the church. Declan had arrived early, as usual, and would be inside with Matthew, doing his regular Sunday socializing. The eldest Lynch brother was somehow very good at remembering everyone he had ever met and their entire family history. It was an impressive wealth of knowledge he utilized at any given moment with maximum charisma to garner goodwill. It wasn’t manipulative so much as resourceful, and Adam envied that skill. His own brain liked to just delete information at key moments. 

After getting out of the car, Adam locked eyes with Ronan, nodding his head in the direction of the silver luxury sedan. Ronan's eyes flicked in that direction and back, expression guarded. Despite having grown closer again, little by little, there were still degrees of separation between the older Lynches that only more time could heal. This meeting, Adam knew, was going to be an especially trying day for Ronan, as it was the first time he had brought Adam as his boyfriend and the first time he had brought Opal at all. Ronan set his jaw, gently took Opal's hand and then Adam's, and began to walk into the church.

Declan and Matthew were already seated in a pew near the back of the small space, and it was the youngest brother that saw them first. His whole face lit up like the sun when he saw their little group of three, and it was only decorum - well, decorum and Declan - that kept him in his seat, but that didn’t stop him from bouncing. Declan glanced up from the hymnal he held, having been alerted by Matthew’s energy. He stood politely, but his gaze tensed as it passed over the three of them, resting on Ronan. Adam felt his boyfriend’s grip tighten on his hand, and he squeezed back reassuringly.

“Hey, Declan,” he said as easily as he could manage, knot in his throat trying to sabotage him. He noted the perfectly straight lines of Declan’s tie, compared to the loose knot Matthew’s was. Adam felt overdressed in his suit jacket; Ronan hadn’t worn one, and Matthew was just wearing a vest over his button-down. It was too late to take it off; the anxiety would set in if he removed the coat, like it was some kind of barrier between him and everyone else.

“Good morning,” Declan returned, sounding much more casual than Adam felt. He didn’t seem nearly as concerned as expected that Opal was there, all long coat and rain boots. He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a leather key fob with his car key attached, handing it across the pew to Opal. It was immediately snatched up with greedy hands and shoved into her mouth, teeth gnawing away.

Adam kept finding himself surprised by Declan’s ability to be gentle and kind after so many months of seeing him sharp and angry; he was starting to realize that while Ronan had been grieving, so had Declan. It was sometimes easy to forget that among the meetings and internships and sharp suits, but Declan was only a year older than the two of them, and where Ronan had had people to care about him and help him, it had just been Declan taking care of himself. It didn’t excuse being an asshole, but Adam felt that he could understand; he had been in a similar position. 

All of the Lynches fit together like a puzzle. There was nothing that one could do without affecting the others in many ways, no matter how infinitesimal. Adam felt like he could see their whole past and future stretching out before the four of them.

He wondered where he fit in to all of it.

As more people began to file into the nave from outside, the Lynches and Adam filed back into the pew. Ronan had a habit of always seating himself next to his youngest brother, with Declan on the other side; he saw Matthew less and fought with Declan more, so it was mostly to keep the peace. Today, however, Opal seemed determined to mess that plan up. She clambered up next to Matthew, wedging herself in between him and Declan so that Matthew was on the end of the pew. Ronan didn’t even hesitate; he sat with enough space between him and Declan for Adam to fill, and the latter didn’t question it. He took the seat he had been given, a neutral wall between the brothers. 

It wasn’t that Ronan and Declan weren’t getting along, because they had been, but Ronan wasn’t willing to test the ice yet. He hadn’t said as much, but Adam knew his boyfriend was afraid of making his relationship with Declan worse. So, yes, he was willing to take the risk of bringing Adam as his boyfriend and Opal as his whatever people wanted to think she was, but he wasn’t ready to sit next to Declan and spend the whole time quietly arguing about it.

To his credit, though, Declan hardly spoke to Adam at all, let alone about him or the small dream thing sitting beside his youngest brother. Throughout the service, he was quiet except when singing. The most distracted he was came during the latter part of the Eucharist, when Opal began to get very restless. People were going up, and she was upset that she wasn’t allowed to when the three brothers went. Adam stayed with her, not comfortable participating, but he was having a hard time wrangling her, and it wasn’t until Declan came back that she began to calm down. Adam had no idea what had been said, but after some (surprisingly gentle) hushed tones from Declan, she stopped at went back to chewing on the key fob and pulling Matthew’s curls gently, delighted by how they bounced back when stretched.

After they were all blessed and the service was over, Adam was the first to stand. He waited awkwardly as everyone else took their time. Declan had lifted Opal from the pew and swung her gently in the air before setting her down on the floor, something that delighted her. She tugged at his sleeve, probably about to ask him to do it again, but Declan had turned to face Ronan and Adam.

There was an almost unreadable expression on Ronan’s face, but it was one Adam had seen before: Ronan was trying to reconcile different versions of the Declan he knew and had known into one before him, trying to see the now and the past and all of the inbetween. Adam laid a hand on his arm, and Ronan’s expression changed.

“She kept annoying Adam about where I went on Sundays and why couldn’t she go,” he said, an answer to a question Declan had not yet asked. 

“Think her curiosity is sated?” Adam glanced back; she had busied herself with climbing Mount Matthew.

“No. She may have been bored, but she can tell there’s more to this place than just that,” Declan replied.

“How do you know that?” Ronan’s voice wasn’t accusatory, but it wasn’t very far off.

It was with the softest of eyes that Declan said, “She’s a lot like you. An explorer, unsatisfied with a single expedition.”

Ronan looked over to where his dreamt daughter stood, expression complicated. There was a feeling, a thought there, that Adam could only guess at. It was a part of Ronan that he couldn’t yet reach, but he looked to Declan, knowing that the eldest Lynch could. 

Adam felt like he was looking in on a family portrait. Matthew stood to the right, Opal in his arms. Declan stood in the middle, with Ronan to his left as they talked around their feelings like they always did. It made Adam feel warm, looking at all of them together. It was a family. He noticed that it seemed like there was an empty spot by Ronan; he stepped forward, making himself part of the picture where he belonged, existing, fully present, at an instantaneous point in time. 

The Lynches, as they were.

**Author's Note:**

> ((written for and at request of my partner!))


End file.
